Gun Control

There is an unprecedented accessibility to firearms and sub-standard access to mental healthcare in the United States. The spectacle of media coverage spurs on “copycat” actors. There are idiosyncratic stressors and anxieties in American life — the chronic preoccupation with fame, the expectation of individual success, a perceived and worsening threat to the identity of the white heterosexual male.

In the wake of every mass shooting, the debate is continually the same. The debate is perpetually stuck because, despite pleas for action, few, if any, pragmatic proposals ever surface. Instead, emotional appeals dominate headlines and television.

There is an unprecedented accessibility to firearms and sub-standard access to mental healthcare in the United States. The spectacle of media coverage spurs on “copycat” actors. There are idiosyncratic stressors and anxieties in American life — the chronic preoccupation with fame, the expectation of individual success, a perceived and worsening threat to the identity of the white heterosexual male.

Until America redefines who she is at her core, until she drags her national folk heroes into the cold and hard light of modern society, atrocities will worsen, and the cycle of grief will continue.

In the wake of every mass shooting, the debate is continually the same. The debate is perpetually stuck because, despite pleas for action, few, if any, pragmatic proposals ever surface. Instead, emotional appeals dominate headlines and television.

Any restriction, solution, or limit on the 2nd Amendment must be able to pass Constitutional muster and should be subject to the same intellectual scruples one would apply to any other Constitutional right (express or implied). Beyond the Constitutional question, some broader policy questions should be asked to ensure that proposals are actionable and germane.